They wait in clutching haste for fate to fill the inside straight of their happiness. - George Alec Effinger

Brant felt a spasm of pain. “Uh,” she said. She closed her eyes tight until the pain went away.
“Can I do anything?” said Staefler.
“Yes,” she said. “Have my baby for me.”

The information I got from one person often contradicted the version I heard from another, so I’d long ago gotten into the habit of trying to hear as many different stories as I could and averaging them all out. The truth was in there somewhere, I knew it; the problem was coaxing it into the open.

People who live their lives by proverbs waste their time doing lots of stupid things. “Getting even is the best revenge” is my motto.